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Possibly 500 killed in fire at vandalised pipeline in Lagos, Nigeria

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A ruptured gasoline pipeline burst into flames as scavengers in the impoverished neighborhood collected spilling fuel. At least 260 people died in the explosion in Nigeria’s largest city, the Red Cross said.

Scores of bodies could be seen jumbled and fused together in the raging flames at the blast site. Intense heat kept rescue workers back as smoke billowed over the heavily populated Abule Egba neighborhood in Lagos.

Witnesses said thieves broke into the pipeline after midnight and hundreds of men, women and children were collecting leaking fuel in plastic buckets, cans and bags for hours before the explosion. It was unclear what ignited the gasoline.

“This was a preventable tragedy,” said Joel Ogundere, a lawyer whose home was next to the blast. “It was poverty, ignorance and greed.”


Bystanders and Red Cross officials watch firefighters trying to put out a blaze after a pipeline explosion in Lagos. (AFP/Pius Utomi Ekpei)

Ethiopian PM says more than 1,000 killed as Somali Islamists retreat

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AFP) – Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said more than 1,000 people have died in fighting since his troops backing Somalia’s government forces took the offensive against powerful Islamists.

“We got reports of more than 3,000 wounded in a Mogadishu hospital. Those who died are well over 1,000,” Meles told a press conference in Addis Ababa, two days after Ethiopia acknowledged military intervention in the neighbouring and lawless Horn of Africa nation.


Government fighters began to advance against the Islamist movement after Ethiopian warplanes bombed Mogadishu airport and other airfields to cut supply lines. “We are only 100 kilometres (60 miles) away from Mogadishu and are heading to it,” Somalia’s ambassador to Ethiopia, Abdelkarin Farah, told journalists in Addis Ababa.

Meles said he had deployed between 3,000 to 4,000 troops. UN reports had said Addis Ababa deployed 8,000 troops, while its regional foe Eritrea sent 2,000 to back the Islamists. “Liberating towns is not our agenda. Our troops have not entered any town,” the prime minister added.

Mainly Christian Ethiopia justified intervention on the grounds that the Islamists represent a direct threat to its own security and sovereignty, and has aligned with Washington in linking their radical leaders with the Al-Qaeda network.

  • 5,000 Foreigners fighting alongside the Islamic Courts
  • Telegraph: Diary from Somalia

    • US Accused of Covert Operations in Somalia

    (The Guardian) Sept. 10, 2006 – Dramatic evidence that America is involved in illegal mercenary operations in east Africa has emerged in a string of confidential emails seen by The Observer. The leaked communications between US private military companies suggest the CIA had knowledge of the plans to run covert military operations inside Somalia – against UN rulings – and they hint at involvement of British security firms.

    The emails, dated June this year, reveal how US firms have been planning undercover missions in support of President Abdullahi Yusuf’s transitional federal government – founded with UN backing in 2004 – against the Supreme Islamic Courts Council – a radical Muslim militia which took control of Mogadishu, the country’s capital, also in June promising national unity under Sharia law.

    Evidence of foreign involvement in the conflict would not only breach the UN arms embargo but could destabilise the entire region.

    One email dated Friday, 16 June, is from Michele Ballarin, chief executive of Select Armor – a US military firm based in Virginia. Ballarin’s email was sent to a number of individuals including Chris Farina of the Florida-based military company ATS Worldwide.

    "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."